In Details Lost Among the City Lights
by littlepaperstars
Summary: Sometimes, you find what you want. Sometimes, what you want finds you. An Ezria story about loneliness and love in the big city.
1. Chapter 1

Author's Note: This is my first time writing fanfic in a really long time. But I've needed an outlet for my creative juices for a while. The first few lines are paying homage to one of my favorite fanfics from another fandom. I hope you enjoy and please let me know if you would like to see more of this!

_"In details lost among the city lights,_

_The words were hard to find."_

-DieRadioDie

Aria can't remember the last time she saw stars, just endless rows of boxes, window lights, streetlamps, neon billboards. She looks out her window at these illuminated squares and wonders about the people behind them. On lonely nights, she writes stories about them in her head. There's the blonde girl who lives across the street; Aria pretends she is a Swedish model, with ten boyfriends and a cat named Bjorn. The ginger in the office across the street; Aria pretends he is a serial killer with two kids, hiding his deep dark secret from the world. Aria writes these stories in her head and she feels connected, part of a city that never really felt like home.

Aria has friends here, now, but it isn't the same. When she calls them now, they don't talk for hours, not like she used to with her friends in Rosewood. Sometimes she chalks that up to age and maturity, but at her most honest moments, she knows it is because the depth isn't there, that maybe her friends don't understand her, not like her old friends did.

Aria remembers their bond, standing over Ali's grave, holding each other, the A nightmare, the secrets, the lies. She's happy that's behind her, but she still misses parts of it; she misses the excitement, the feelings. She misses Hanna's quick wit, Emily's warmth, Spencer's smile, and the fucking stars over Rosewood. She misses it all, misses the unpredictability.

She still sees them, sometimes. She has lunch with Spencer every time she comes to the city. They eat at some overpriced, fancy restaurant Aria couldn't afford. When the check comes, Aria makes a show of reaching for it, even though they both know Spencer will be paying anyways.

After high school, Spencer went off to Penn, studied pre-law, got a 4.0. She was TA for some classes, played on the lacrosse team, met a guy named Jamie. They got married and she went to law school, Harvard, natch. Now she lives in a suburb of Chicago, in a big house with a four-car garage and a swimming pool. Aria sees her when she comes to town, but it isn't the same. Spencer taps away at her blackberry and orders a salad every time. Aria remembers sleepovers, endless bags of chips and pints of ice cream, eating frosting straight from the jar.

She hasn't seen Emily in years. She lives outside of San Francisco with her wife. She went off to some small liberal arts school, swam, made all state. Aria can remember the emails, each one with more exclamation points than the last. "WON THE MEET! WOOOOOHOO!" Now she teaches little kids how to swim at the local community center. Her wife runs a nursery, selling tiny plants to hipsters and housewives. She's happy, happier than anyone else Aria knows, at least. They Skype, sometimes, short conversations, updates. Emily is pregnant now, thanks to a petri dish and doctor in a white lab coat. Aria hopes it's a girl.

Hanna became a stylist for the stars. She lives in Los Angeles with Caleb, in a house on a hill with two dogs. Aria sees her name in the trashy magazines they have in waiting rooms, at the doctor, the dentist. The captions read, "Jennifer Lawrence, styled by Hanna Marin." They talked last week, about nothing, just words, small talk between the shouts at Hanna's personal assistant. Hanna tells Aria to come visit, come out to the west coast, to see her and Emily. She says, "I'll pay for the plane ticket," and Aria becomes quiet. They both know she will never come, won't accept the charity, and Hanna won't mention it again for months.

As for Aria, she writes; her name is imprinted on the spine of books on the shelf at Barnes and Noble's, hidden among the thousands of other tomes. Some months the checks come and she goes out to dinner, orders dessert; some months, the checks don't come, and she goes to bed with an aching in her stomach and worried voicemails from her mother ringing in her ears. Her agent says, "It's all happening." Her agent says, "This next one is going to be huge, I can feel it." And Aria smiles at her, but wonders what makes this one different from the last three.

She's seeing a guy, a model; his name is Jake. He has sandy brown hair and bulging muscles, the kind you see in summer blockbusters, the kind on leading men. He's sweet; he rubs Aria's feet, cooks her lasagna. They go out, to the movies, to dinner, to the little league games he coaches in central park on the weekend. Aria tried to take him to a museum once; he stared at the paintings and sighed before wandering off to the gift shop. Now when Aria wants to see art, she goes alone, slips her headphones into her ears and disappears into the crowds of excited tourists snapping photos.

She thinks about him, about being fifteen and so in love she could barely stand it. She thinks of nights with him at museums, standing in silent absorption of light and color, the way they would go back to his apartment and he would take to his typewriter, typing furiously, inspired. She thinks of the feelings, the excitement, the electricity of each kiss. She thinks of stolen moments in dimly lit stairwells, of nights spent on his couch with Thai food and Cary Grant, thinks of him and his hair, messy from sleep, his eyes, so blue they looked like weather. She thinks of her head on his lap as he graded papers, him kissing her in the rain, the way they fit together so perfectly, like two missing puzzle pieces.

She thinks about him when she's sitting in Jake's apartment, staring at his old wrestling trophies on the wall. She thinks about their nights of black and white movies while Jake watches Hugh Jackman swipe at things with hairy talons. She thinks about the posters on Ezra's walls, movies Aria had never heard of before him, covers of books they had loved. She wonders where he is. She sits at her computer and fights the urge to Google him, to seek him out, to think about him. She fights the urge and she succeeds, most nights. She wonders if he ever thinks of her, ever fights the urge to Google her name, to get lost in one of her stories. She wonders if he has a "Jake", someone he has dinner with, someone he takes to the movies.

Aria listens to the sounds of sirens blaring outside of her window, of babies crying and cars honking and people shouting and endless, indistinguishable noise that blurs together into a song, an unwelcome soundtrack to her life. Aria can't remember the last time she felt the serene simplicity of silence wash over her. She walks the city streets and she is wistful, wistful for Rosewood, wistful for quiet, for the sound of crickets chirping in the trees, of the rustling of leaves swaying softly in the breeze. She thinks about New York, about the concept of eight million people on a tiny island and it makes her head hurt. She thinks of Rosewood, her tiny town with a population of barely eight thousand, and it makes her heart hurt.

She goes to bed, wraps her blanket around her body and wonders if this is it, if this is the life she looked forward to when she was younger.


	2. Chapter 2

AN: Thank you all so much for reading my first chapter! Special thank you to dottyberry, Ezriafreak and Divatard for their reviews! Hope you enjoy this one!

2.

Aria stays in bed for the next few days. She watches trashy daytime TV, like a bored housewife. She tries to write a few pages of her new book, a modern riff on '30s gangster pulp fiction. She eats ramen noodles, wears sweatpants, forgets to shower. Her phone rings a few times, chimes with texts, but she lets it go to voice mail, doesn't answer, preferring to spend her days unencumbered by the outside world.

On her 5th day of hibernation, as she calls it, she gets a message from some girl in her editor's office, asking her to come in the next day with copies of whatever she has for her new book. She goes to bed and wishes she could just write and not have to worry about editors and agents and book releases, tours and readings. She wishes she could just write, but she wished that long ago too, and this is still where she has ended up.

She wakes up the next morning, if you could call noon the morning. She wakes up and she looks in the mirror at her bleary eyes, messy hair, pale skin. She looks at herself and barely recognizes the dead eyes staring back at her.

She takes a shower, uses some fancy soap she got in a gift bag at some press event. It smells like oranges. She makes herself a cup of coffee, black, with three sugars, scrambles an egg and makes some bacon in the microwave. She gave up vegetarianism a while ago, back when she dated a grocer named Finn. He showed her the pesticide mix they used on the vegetables in his store; gallons of toxic chemicals they sprayed on her heirloom tomatoes, her stalks of supposedly organic asparagus, to keep bugs away. It freaked her out so much; she went home and had her first hamburger in years. Now, years later, she eats meat sometimes, when she can afford it, anyways.

She gets dressed, a black dress, black leggings, combat boots. Her closet is nearly all black now, a New York cliché. She remembers how much she used to love getting dressed, how every outfit was an adventure, her body, a blank canvas. She used to revel in the stares of strangers, used to feel special. Now, she just feels tired. Exhausted by the minutia of every solitary second.

She puts on some mascara, concealer, tries to look like she gives a fuck. Stuffs a folder with a few pages of notes into her messenger bag. This month she can afford a cab, but she walks to the subway anyways. She takes the E train, standing up halfway through so a pregnant lady can take her seat.

Aria has only been to her editor's office a hand full of times, to read contracts, sign away her soul. Most of the time, her editor, a tiny blonde named Laura who talks too fast, invites her to lunch. They talk line edits and manuscripts over plates of pasta and glasses of champagne, paid for by an expense account. No, Aria knows that going to the publishing office is something different, something serious. She tries to muster up enough concern to be nervous.

The lobby of Laura's office building is decorated with paintings of tacky vases filled with pastel flowers; hotel art, she calls them, inoffensive, but boring, ordinary. Each time she comes she has to go through security, it's like the fucking airport, she thinks, as she steps through the metal detectors.

The elevator is crowded, noisy, smells like cleaning fluid. She gets out in front of her editor's office, taking a second to smell the fresh flowers by the door, big beautiful roses the color of blood. They remind her of Rosewood, of Spencer's mother gardening in the summer sun, cellphone in hand.

Aria hasn't been back to Rosewood in a year. Her family still lives there; her dad still works at Hollis, her mom, at Rosewood High. They don't live together anymore. Ella got the house in the divorce settlement, got remarried, some guy Aria barely knows, never calls dad despite his insistence. He's young, cute, owns a couple of coffee shops, makes the worst fucking cappuccino Aria has ever had. Byron moved across town, to a two-bedroom apartment near Hollis. He lives with Meredith and her cat, a scrunch-y faced, hairless, grumpy thing named Ruby. When Aria comes to visit, Meredith smiles too wide, tries too hard, makes her endless cups of tea, none of which she will ever drink.

Mike stayed in town too, married a girl from Ravenswood; they have a kid now, a two-year-old hellion who delights in pulling Auntie Aria's hair. Mike works as an orderly at the local mental hospital, Radley, which Aria still finds ironic, though supposedly his problems have long been solved by the miracle of modern medicine. Aria wonders if he sees Mona, if he feeds pills to that crazy bitch, the one who nearly killed his sister.

The receptionist motions Aria into Laura's office and she sits down; there are boxes stacked up in the corner, the desk is uncharacteristically bare. Laura is on the phone, as always. She speaks English in clear, bright tones in between mutterings in broken, stilted French. Aria tries to remember high school French classes, but comes up blank, save for a few lyrics from "Lady Marmalade". Voulez-vous coucher avec moi, ce soir…

When Laura gets off the phone, she rushes towards Aria. "I'm engaged, he's French!" She squeals, waving her giant engagement ring in Aria's face. "And I'm getting the fuck out of here. We're moving to Nice!" Aria smiles, stares down at the ring, and congratulates her. Secretly she wonders if her new agent will be as lenient with due dates as Laura was, wonders if she'll have to take meetings in the office from now on.

Aria asks Laura about her replacement, if she'll get to meet him. She presses a few buttons on her intercom, "Joyce, invite Z in! I want him to meet one of his new clients." She shouts into the little speaker, winking at Aria from behind her obnoxiously large hipster glasses.

Z, she remembers…someone used to call Ezra that. The door opens with a creak, and Aria turns around. She sees the guy's shoes first, loafers so shiny she can practically see her own reflection as she looks at them. She takes in his jeans, his crisp white button down shirt and ugly, patterned tie. Their eyes meet. Holy crap, she thinks. Fuck.


	3. Chapter 3

**AN:** Thank you to everyone who read the previous chapters! Special thank you to those who reviewed, UngluckLiebhaber, colorfulunicows, Nattou, obsessedwithezria, Ezriafreak, Rosewood girl 317, A Pretty Little Love, soul, Jane and dalh2755! I appreciate the encouragement more than you know. I hope you don't hate me too much after this chapter, it's a necessary evil, I promise! ;)

**3.**

Aria stands up, shakes his hand, introduces herself as if they haven't met before, as if he hasn't held her, hasn't spent endless hours curled up with her on his threadbare couch. Ezra takes the hint, extends his hand, keeps his face blank. They sit, staring at each other while Laura prattles on about Aria's "talent," her "unique voice."

They talk about Ezra's experience, and Aria fights the urge to roll her eyes, smirk. She knows all about Ezra's experience, knows the feeling of arms curled around her, his body pressed against hers, his fingers deep inside her.

They talk about her books. Laura pulls them off the tiny bookshelf behind her desk, sets them in front of Ezra but he doesn't even glance at them. "I've read them all," he says, his eyes still locked on Aria's. Laura looks between them, her brow scrunched, a question on the tip of her tongue. She seems to think better of it though, knowing a can of worms is best left unopened and instead, asks Ezra if he enjoyed her books. He flinches, hesitates. "I hated the first one," he says, referring to Aria's first book, a novella about a teenage girl who kills her English teacher after getting caught up in a torrid love affair. "The other two were good," he says.

Aria pulls her folder from her bag, tosses it in Ezra's lap. "Stuff for the new book," she says. "Rough draft," she says, shrugs. A receptionist calls for Laura and she excuses herself, closing the door behind her. Ezra and Aria are alone in the room, sitting in silence; she looks at him, really looks at him, for the first time in years.

His hair is shorter now; it doesn't fall over his forehead quite like it used to, but it still has that delightfully messy curl to it. Aria has to stop herself from reaching out to comb her fingers through it, remembering how soft it used to feel. His eyes are still as blue as she remembers, though now there are bags underneath them, purple reminders of the cruel passage of time. His chin is covered in a thin layer of scruff; he has a small scar across his forehead, right above his left eyebrow. He looks the same and yet very different, older, less boyish, his features, a bit weathered by age.

Aria tries to feel nothing. She tries and fails because she looks at him and feels an incredible wave of sadness wash over her, sadness for the 16 year old who loved him so much, a girl who no longer exists. She thinks about the day he left, packed up his apartment and headed west to live with Malcolm and Maggie, to "do the right thing," play happy family. She remembers lying on her bed in Rosewood, crying about him, crying about A, crying about the innocent seven-year-old boy unknowingly caught up in her life, crying just to cry, crying for catharsis.

"Aria," He starts, but she shakes her head, says no. She knows that there is really nothing to say, knows that anything he could say would only amount to a silly platitude, some cliché about how long it's been, how good she looks. She knows it would all be just words anyways, that they wouldn't fix anything. She knows a lot more about what people say now, now that she isn't sixteen years old. She knows more about what people say, and even more about what people don't say and she knows that one is more important than the other.

"This is a business relationship, Ezra. I write, you read. That's it. This isn't anything else, it can't, won't be anything else." She eyes the pages in his lap. "Read it, send me your notes via email. Don't tell me what you think I want to hear, that's bullshit. We're done here, okay?" She swallows back the thick ball of tears forming in the back of her throat and smiles at him, a fake gesture that never meets her eyes.

She doesn't wait for a response, just gets up from the chair and leaves the office. She gives Laura a hug on her way out, tells her to be good, to keep in touch. She takes a cab home, crying the entire time, an ugly cry, her face red and pinched, snot dripping from her nose like a leaky faucet. The cab driver stares at her in the rear view mirror, hands her a tissue that smells exotic and spicy, like cumin and curry powder.

She gets home, pulls off her dress and tights and leaves them in a pile on the floor of her bedroom. She fires off an email to Ezra's boss requesting a different editor, for "personal reasons", lies in bed for a few hours. Lunch is a shot of tequila chased with a bag of sour skittles. She falls asleep to the sounds of Maury chastising a pregnant twelve-year-old girl on her TV.

She wakes up an hour or so later, to a new text from Jake. "Come over tonight, around 7. I'm making mushroom ravioli, your favorite ;)!"

At 6 p.m. she gets out of bed, washes her face, changes back into her black dress. It's wrinkled from being on the floor, but Aria doesn't bother picking out a new outfit, can't seem to care. She puts on her makeup, stuffs a credit card, her keys, a couple of crumbled up 10-dollar bills, into a tiny black wristlet. On her way out of the apartment she stops in front of her fridge. It's empty, except for some left overs from a few nights before, eggs, bread, a couple of bottles of wine. Aria grabs one of the bottles, a cheap one from Trader Joe's. She makes a mental note to go grocery shopping.

She hails a cab to Jake's apartment. He lives in Tribeca, a couple blocks south of ground zero, in a renovated industrial loft in a building that used to be a watch factory. The freight elevator rattles as it moves upwards; every time Aria takes it, she wonders if it will get stuck, imagines doomsday scenarios of starving to death in the darkened, enclosed space.

The hallway outside of Jake's apartment smells like homemade tomato sauce, like garlic and rosemary, basil, thyme. Aria knocks twice and Jake comes to the door. His apron is a bright sunny yellow, stained with red tomato spots and swipes of flour, it reads, "Real men wear aprons."

He ushers her in, takes off the apron and gives her a quick kiss. "You smell amazing," he says, even though Aria is pretty sure she still smells like skittles and tequila. Thanks, she replies, setting the bottle of wine on table.

The plates are arranged, two plates of ravioli, a large bowl of Caesar salad, empty wineglasses, utensils lain out in lines of two and three. The lights hanging from the ceiling are dim, but the billboard across the street shines through the floor to ceiling windows bathing the apartment in a soft glow.

Aria knows that Jake has worked hard to be able to afford his apartment; she's heard his horror stories about model dorms, tiny apartments in the outer reaches of Queens where models live packed in like sardines, four to a room. She knows he's worked hard, seen the prints to prove it, but she can't help but be a little resentful when she looks at his giant one bedroom apartment with its open floor plan and compares it to her hole in the wall studio. His entire apartment looks like it was pulled from a home decor magazine, a paragon of cleanliness, not like Aria's. Aria leaves dishes in the sink, forgets to vacuum, treats the floor like a giant shelf.

He pours the wine, tops hers off with a little more than his. She knows he'll spend three hours at the gym tomorrow working off whatever he eats tonight. They make small talk in between bites of salad and pasta. He tells her about his new gig, modeling underwear for some European company he can't pronounce. He tells her about the new agent scouting him, the new restaurant down the street that they should try, the new movie he wants to see over the weekend. Aria listens, nods at the appropriate moments, pretends it's all very interesting. Her mind is somewhere else.

He asks how her book is coming, asks if he can get a sneak peak. She blushes, tells him she isn't ready. Jake asks what her editor thinks of her rough draft. "She likes it," Aria says. She doesn't mention Laura's departure, or seeing Ezra. Later when she's lying in his bed she will wonder why she didn't tell him, why she decided to omit that little fact. She will feel the slightest twinge of something in her chest, the smallest ball of guilt forming, of shame, self doubt.

After dinner he washes the dishes in the sink, bent over, scrubbing away. Aria comes up behind him, wrapping her arms around his chest. She tugs at him, turning him around, pushing him against the edge of the sink.

She grabs his face in her hands, kissing him roughly, he responds with equal fervor. His hands go to her waist; hers make their way into his hair. He pulls at the hem of her dress, tugging it over her head, tossing it aside. The sink faucet drips behind him.

She kisses his neck, wrestles with the buttons on his shirt. "Do you have…anything?" She asks. He pushes her away from him, but curls his arm around her back; he raises his eyebrows in silent question.

"Isn't this going a bit…fast? Is everything okay? And the shades are open, people might see." He says. She tells him everything is fine. She doesn't care.

"Just fuck me," she says. She leans in and kisses him again, while he fumbles for the condom in his pocket.

They have sex up against the wall in the kitchen, her legs wrapped around him, his strong arms holding her up. He comes after a few minutes, moaning into her ear. Almost involuntarily, Aria starts to picture her first time, on a bed in Ezra's apartment in Rosewood. She can practically hear the music playing in the background, smell the scent of Ezra's cologne lingering in the air. She feels so guilty, so undeserving of Jake; she feigns orgasm, pushes him away lightly. They collapse on the hardwood floor, sweaty, and in Jake's case, satiated.

Afterwards she tugs on her panties and pulls on his button down shirt. It comes down past her knees. Jake pulls on his boxers, his chest still bare, rising and falling rapidly from the exertion. They sit on the couch, and he wraps his arm around Aria's shoulder, holding her close. They watch TV, some awful adult cartoon with a pre-recorded laugh track. Aria looks up at Jake, watching him as he watches the television set. He seems so content to be there, so happy in the moment. Aria is instantly reminded of something Spencer told her once. "Happy people just haven't thought about it enough; people who are happy are actually just stupid," she recites to herself, sighing inwardly.

Aria catches a glimpse of their reflection in the window; they look every bit the perfect couple. Looks, Aria knows, can be deceiving. Her phone rings with a new email and she looks down at it; it's the reply from the head of the editing department, "sorry," it reads, "request denied."


	4. Chapter 4

AN: Here's chapter four, I hope you all enjoy it, thanks for sticking with me! Special thanks to those who reviewed the last chapter; dottyberry, jaceyb1, obsessedwithezria, A Pretty Little Love and dalh2755, your encouragement keeps me writing! :)

4. [Ezra]

Ezra spends the week leading up to the move packing his entire apartment into boxes. First, his clothes, then books, kitchen utensils, papers, random knick-knacks Malcolm made in art class when he was younger; an entire life reduced to things stacked in cardboard cubes.

Ezra thinks about the last time he moved across the country, packed up his entire life, left his job, his friends, Aria. That, he thinks, was the turning point in his life, the grand catalyst for all of the change, good and bad, that he's experienced.

Years later he tells himself it was for the best, that Malcolm deserved a father in his life; but he still remembers Aria, thinks about her big doe eyes and pale, milky soft skin, her scent, the perfect mix of vanilla and sandalwood, sweet but dark, mysterious. Most of the time, Ezra tries not to think about her, long for her, but sometimes she creeps into his consciousness late at night when he's alone in bed. He can picture her so clearly, her lying beside him while they watched old movies, her face the last time they saw each other, her sad smile as she looked at him, not knowing it would be for the last time.

Ezra remembers the move from Rosewood, remembers arriving at his new home in Seattle; trying to be excited, hopeful about his new little insta-family, just add Ezra. He remembers walking through the street for the first time, Malcolm's small hand linked with his, Maggie smiling at his side. To everyone, they probably looked every bit the perfect couple; and they were, for a while, lived happily ever after, sleeping side by side in a double bed in a small apartment downtown.

Ezra got a job at a newspaper writing book reviews, human-interest pieces, obits, odd columns no one else wanted. He actually liked most of the offbeat things he got to write about, loved leaving work for an interview, never knowing what sort of characters he would encounter along the way; loved the freedom of his job, being able to see Malcolm, to pick him up from school each day.

Maggie got her master's, finished with honors, took a job with special needs kids; Malcolm grew up, played soccer, guitar, started skateboarding. Time trudged on and Ezra tried to be happy, but trying, he knows, is very different from being.

A few years after the move, they started fighting, loud screaming matches, big blowouts that sent Malcolm running to his room, flying out the door. They fought about money, about the apartment, about Malcolm, about the present, the past, the future; they fought about everything that a couple could conceivably fight about. Ezra was miserable; he stayed at the office until midnight, ate endless dinners out of greasy takeout wrappers, fell asleep hunched over his desk, all in the name of avoiding Maggie.

But still, they stayed together for Malcolm, trying in vain to make it work, to give him a family. One day Malcolm came to Ezra, said he hated them fighting, didn't want to live with them anymore, he wanted to go off to boarding school, one of those alternative learning environments down in California.

Ezra realized then that he had screwed up, that all of his delusions of his happy family had been just that, delusions. He broke it off with Maggie and moved out of the apartment, to a smaller two-bedroom across town, while Malcolm stayed with Maggie at their old place. The split was everything the relationship hadn't been, easy, amicable; they switched off weekends with Malcolm, devised their own custody system, arranged everything via email, a modern parenting success story. It all seemed to work out and Ezra was reasonably content.

He started dating again, a girl named Sarah with long red hair and a penchant for tattoos, a girl named Renee who owned a rescue shelter for abandoned reptiles, one named Chloe who wrote increasingly bizarre haikus, farmed sustainable crops on the roof of her apartment building. None of them stuck around long enough for it to get serious.

Then the economic downturn hit, print media started dying off; his paper folded, along with three others in town. He searched craigslist looking for work, called his old contacts at the paper, applied at schools and marketing firms, for magazines and corporate gigs, temp agencies.

After nearly a year of looking unsuccessfully, he gave in, called his mother, listened to her talk about what a colossal mess he had managed to make of his life, ask questions about when she would see "proper" grandchildren, when he was going to pull it all together, whatever that meant.

Nonetheless, she agreed to pull some strings, get him a new job, provided he was willing to submit to a lengthy list of demands, including, but not limited to, moving back to the east coast. Ezra thought about it, talked to Maggie, talked to Malcolm, spent long nights lying awake in bed questioning the move, his life, his perceived level of happiness. Maggie told him to do whatever he felt was right, reminded him that Malcolm could always visit him back east; after all, he was nearly in high school, old enough to fly on a plane by himself.

After weeks of deliberating, weeks of biting his fingernails down to tiny stubs, weeks of futile searching for a job, he finally called his mother back, agreed to her terms. Two days later he was on the phone for an interview with some girl named Laura, an editor for a publishing house in New York City. She was moving overseas to be with her new fiancé, a Frenchman with a yacht in the French Riviera, and she needed to hire a replacement, ASAP.

Ezra waited nervously, told himself he didn't care about this job, though by that point he felt so exhausted, so discouraged by his job search, a rejection from McDonald's probably would have stung. A couple days after that, Laura called him back, told him he should start packing, told him he should read up on his clients, get ready for his new life back east. He didn't know how felt about it all, so he chose not to think about it, channeled his confusion into preparing for the move.

Soon everything was packed up, loaded into a big yellow moving van that smelled like mothballs, camphor, menthol. Ezra says goodbye to Maggie, tells her to take care of his son. He hugs Malcolm insanely hard, promises to be back for Christmas, to fly him out for spring break next year, to talk to him on the phone, Skype with him and text him, to still be every bit the dad he was before.

Ezra flies cross-country, takes the red-eye on a hot night in mid-August; when he lands, the air is thick with vapor, the clouds in the sky hang low and grey, warning of an impending storm. He takes a cab from JFK to his new apartment, stares out the window at Manhattan looming in the distance, stares at the Queensboro bridge, the Empire State Building, rising up above the other buildings, standing crisp, tall like a toy solider.

His mother finds him a suitable apartment on the upper west side, in a building with a doorman and a gym, marble floors in the lobby, exposed brick walls. When Ezra walks in for the first time, he sees it's furnished with the basics, a bed, a microwave, a desk Ezra knows has been in his family for longer than he's been alive. The Wi-Fi is set up, the electricity, too, cable, heat; the fridge is stocked with milk, bread, bottles of water. There's a note stuck to the front of it, a tiny yellow post-it; welcome home, love Mom, it reads.

He spends his first day in New York watching reruns of "I Love Lucy" and waiting for the movers, his second day unpacking boxes. He emerges on his third day in the city to buy a bagel, poppy seed, with a thick layer of cream cheese sandwiched between the two halves. He picks up some files from Laura, sits at an outdoor café sipping iced coffee and eating croissants, reading up on his soon-to-be clients.

He flips through page after page of rough drafts, notes, thick manuscripts scribbled with red ink, plays from playwrights he doesn't recognize. After a few hours of reading, he sees something that stops his heart right in his chest; there, scrawled crookedly on the tab of a file folder is her name, Aria Montgomery.

He reads the file with rapt attention, shuffles through several rough drafts of her bio, a list of accolades for her books, information on book tours she's done. It isn't anything he doesn't already know, having followed her work for years. He can still remember walking into the bookstore years ago on the release date of her first book, buying two copies, reading the entire thing in his car in one long sitting. There's a recent picture of her in the file, a wallet sized headshot of her smiling, her head tilted to one side, her long, glossy locks tossed over her shoulder, her lips stained a deep burgundy; Ezra slides it into his pocket without a second thought.

A few weeks later when Ezra steps into Laura's office, he's sure he's less surprised to see Aria than she is to see him, but he isn't surprised when she pretends not to know him, remembering her effortless ability to lie on command.

She looks so beautiful, he thinks, every bit as beautiful as he remembers, every bit as beautiful as the picture he stole from her file. Her eyes still pierce him the way he remembers, still full him with this undeniable longing to touch her, to hold her, to kiss her, to be with her.


	5. Chapter 5

AN: Sorry for the delay between chapters, I was so busy at work! Thank you to all who reviewed the last chapter, I hope you enjoy this one!

5.

The next few days go by uneventfully. Ezra doesn't call her, doesn't write, despite the fact that deadlines are looming, pages due. Instead, she gets updates from her agent, email requests for appearances at bookstores and trendy cafes that she wants to decline, questions about her contract that she doesn't have the energy to think about. She reads them between emails from Laura. "Going skinny dipping in Cannes! Just checking in, how are things with Ezra?" she writes. Aria thinks, more complicated than you know, but replies, "great, but we miss you around here," instead.

When she does finally talk to Ezra on the phone, it's awkward; they both choose their words so carefully as though they're playing some verbal game of Jenga, afraid to upset their fragile balance, this strange status quo that they've built without acknowledging it. Aria's palm sweat for the first time in years, her hands shaking slightly as she holds her phone up to her ear. His voice is so familiar, each word like a bee sting to her heart.

Aria spends the next few days trying to write, hours wrestling with writer's block, pacing in front of her computer, wracking her brain for the exact right words, words worthy of committing to memory. She contemplates calling Ezra again, calling Laura, calling her dad, calling one of those fucking ridiculous TV psychics, just to get out of her head for a minute. But instead, she just spends long nights drinking bottomless pots of coffee and eating takeout from the Vietnamese restaurant around the corner from her apartment.

Autumn comes without much fanfare; the leaves turn colors, wither and die, falling to the street, crunching underfoot. The air becomes chilly; it rains for days on end. Aria spends her mornings sitting by the window in Jake's apartment, following the water droplets that glide down the windowpane with her eyes, listening to the thunder. She's been spending more time at his place lately; they're getting more serious, Aria can tell by the way he looks at her, but she isn't sure what to say to him, so she doesn't say anything. They watch more TV, she writes and he reads, works out on the treadmill he bought for half price from a gym going out of business.

Halloween approaches; it creeps up slowly, like an old friend, filling Aria with more excitement than she's used to. When she was younger, Halloween was her least favorite holiday, thanks to A and the never-ending parade of lunatics locking her in boxes, chasing after her in creepy doll-like masks. She's since gotten over her fear of the holiday, thanks to several years in therapy and a good dose of Xanax.

Soon, there are big orange cutouts of pumpkins lining the walls of her building's elevator, a giant plastic skeleton with glowing eyes swinging from a hook on her neighbor's door; it groans ominously ever time Aria passes by it. Aria buys large bags of mini candy bars, eats all of the dark chocolate ones. She rarely gets trick-or-treaters in her building, but she can't shake the small town habit of buying candy anyways.

Hanna texts Aria pictures of her dogs dressed up like tiny, pudgy pirates, complete with eye patches and a stuffed parrot perched on each shoulder. Emily sends Aria a photo of her laughing, a pair of whiskers drawn on her tiny baby bump of a belly, black cat ears perched on her head. Aria prints out the photo, puts it on her fridge, attaching it with a tiny magnet shaped like a piece of sushi.

She gets an invite to her publisher's annual Halloween party, a huge masquerade ball held the night before Halloween in the grand foyer of the Museum of Natural History. Aria hasn't had the best luck with masquerade balls, she thinks, remembering chasing after shadowy figures, the queen of hearts, the black swan; but she RSVPs anyways, reminding herself A can't torment her anymore, that the open bar will be good, even if the event itself isn't. Jake invites Aria to a party at some model's house, too. They're on different nights, but Aria decides she only needs one costume; doubts the crowds at the posh society event and downtown hipster soiree will converge.

Jake buys them costumes from some random party store off Canal Street. He picks up a Jesus wig and long white robes for him, and a sexy devil dress with matching sparkly red horns and a curly tail for her. Aria laughs when he shows her, kisses him lightly. But the next day, Aria returns the costume, goes to the thrift store instead, spends an hour browsing through the costume racks. Hidden among the superhero outfits and slutty cop uniforms, she finds it, the perfect dress; it calls to her, like a moth to a flame. It's an old-fashioned dress fit for a glamorous cotillion down south, the kind that Scarlett O'Hara would wear, with a full hula hoop skirt and a flowery sash. Aria tries it on, the yards of fabric so heavy she's barely able to lift it above her head. When each inch falls into place, Aria marvels at its perfect fit, twirls in the mirror and practices her southern drawl, waving a silken hand fan the sales girl fishes out of a bin of costume pieces.

She looks at herself in the mirror and sighs, nearly faints at the price tag. Technically she could afford it, could buy it and eat ramen for the next week or so, stay in, save her pennies, but finally she admits to herself that spending a few hundred dollars for a Halloween costume she'll likely only wear once or twice is excessive. She takes off the dress, arranges it on the hanger and leaves it in the dressing room, sad and shapeless. Instead, she buys a hat, a large umbrella and a red bowtie for a little less than ten bucks, decides she'll be Mary Poppins instead.

Soon, she gets an email from Ezra, a couple notes on the progress of her book, an invite to meet him at the office and discuss her direction for the next few chapters. She hesitates, doesn't respond for a few days, thinks about it, thinks about him, while she's eating dinner with Jake, while she's walking to the subway, while she's in the shower. On her third sleepless night she responds, asks him when she should come in. His reply comes almost instantly, with the date and the time, and nothing else, not even his name at the bottom.

Aria comes in that Wednesday, her laptop bag slung over her shoulder. She shakes hands with Ezra's new receptionist, a redhead straight out of college with a Midwestern accent and a too-short skirt. They make small talk about city life, Halloween costumes and Chinese restaurants; Aria shows her a photo of the southern belle dress, sighs longingly.

Finally after a 20-minute wait, Ezra invites her in, closes the door. Aria is tense at first, gripping the edge of her seat with both hands. They talk about her book, he praises her character development,, complains about the predictability of a minor subplot involving a henchman and a sack of cash.

"Do you have any questions for me, Aria?" Aria can hear the pain in that one syllable, the way he says her name; she can feel the tension in the air, the words left unsaid. The status is no longer quo, now that they're sitting across from each other, alone in the tiny office. She wants so badly to ask him why he left years ago, why he didn't say goodbye, why he never called, or texted, or emailed; but instead she says no, gathering up her papers and slipping out the door without a trace.


	6. Chapter 6

6.

Aria spends the next week writing and rewriting; she sits in front of her computer, fingers splayed out on the keyboard, unmoving, her eyes, tired and bloodshot from overuse, practically on the brink of revolt, her brain unable to process even one more word.

It's about a week and a half before Halloween, a few days before her next deadline, not that Ezra seems to care. They don't talk, not often, and when they do, it's awkward, uncomfortable, stilted. But still she writes, typing, hoodie pulled over her head, hunched like some veiled apostle transcribing holy documents for the masses.

Aria is mid-sentence, half slumped in her desk chair clutching a lukewarm cup of coffee when she hears her intercom crackle; "USPS, we got a package here for you, ma'am," the guy says, his voice tinny, marred by static. She buzzes him up, though she cannot remember ordering anything. She wonders if her mom sent her a package, cookies that she'll eat in one sitting, photos of her and her new husband, mementos Aria hates, though she would never tell Ella that.

She signs for the package, stares at the large box uneasily. There's no return address. She recognizes the handwriting on the outside of the package, but cannot tell from where. Her mind instantly goes to a dark place, a place it hasn't been for years. She thinks about A, about Chinese food containers with dirt and worms, creepy dolls reciting cryptic messages, a necklace made of teeth.

She calls Spencer; it goes to voicemail, Hanna, same thing. She doesn't leave him a message. Aria hesitates, doesn't know if she should bother Emily, not wanting to stress her expectant friend out, but gives in after a few minutes and dials her number. She remembers having Emily's number memorized, ingrained in her memory; now, she has to select it from a list on her phone.

Emily picks up after the third ring with a cheerful, "Aria! I'm so glad you called!" They make small talk for a bit. Emily tells Aria about the nursery room they've set up, the stuff they've picked out for the baby, a crib, a changing table, a mobile with tiny fish hanging from it. Aria asks how Paige is, Emily inquires about things with Jake, they talk about baby names and book deals. Just as Aria is about to mention the package, Emily rushes off the phone, telling her Paige is home with food, peanut butter, pickles, the rocky road ice cream she's been craving for at least an hour. Aria cringes at the thought and hangs up the phone.

She sighs, grabs a pair of scissors off her desk. "You're being silly, Aria, A can't hurt you. You're an adult now. That crazy bitch is in Radley and the rest of the them are in jail," she whispers to herself, before carefully cutting through the tape covering the cardboard box. She opens it, careful not to touch anything. Nestled inside the larger shipping box is a smaller one, tucked inside layers of ominous black tissue paper.

Aria takes the gift box out, lifts the lid gingerly and the fear dissipates instantly. The Scarlett O'Hara dress is laying in the box, neatly folded, the hand fan and a floppy straw bonnet hat resting on top of it.

A card falls out as Aria unfurls the fabric. "I know you will look beautiful in this," it reads in flowing, unfamiliar script. There's no signature on the card, but Aria instantly thinks of Jake, wonders if he somehow found out about her returning the devil costume. Aria pulls it out of the box and holds it up against her body, giddy about the prospect of spending her favorite holiday in such a beautiful dress.

The week before Halloween, Aria gets a voicemail from Jake. "Can't make it to the Halloween party, babe," he says. "Got booked for a last minute shoot in Jamaica," he says. "I swear, I'll make it up to you," he says. Aria listens to the message twice, hearing the sadness in Jake's voice. Aria knows she should feel disappointed, but she doesn't care and she tries to ignore the guilt she feels over her own apathy.

Halloween falls on a Monday this year. A few days before, the news starts warning of a storm, an apocalyptic hurricane to end all hurricanes, a "Franken-storm" for the history books. Aria tries to ignore the warnings, but on Saturday afternoon she gets a call; they've cancelled the gala, postponed it for a week, at least, maybe two. Aria folds up the Scarlet O'Hara dress, puts it back in the bright green gift box and tucks it away in the corner of a shelf at the top of her closet. There's always next year, she thinks, next Halloween.

She spends the day begrudgingly preparing for the storm, goes to the supermarket and buys a bunch of stuff off a list she printed from some emergency preparedness website, tosses batteries and an emergency radio in her cart along with her staples; granola bars and bananas, chocolate and wine. Aria's mom calls her, tells her to stay safe, as does her dad, Mike, Hanna, Emily, a few old friends she barely speaks to anymore. Spencer sends her a text, "Crazy busy here, prepping for a case. Be safe," it says.

Jake calls and Aria hears the reggae music in the background, hears the sounds of the waves crashing on the beach, peels of high pitched, girlish laughter. "Be careful," he says. "Call me if you need me," he says. "I…I love you," he says. It is the first time he tells her that; Aria is caught off guard, stunned into momentary silence. "Did you hear me?" Jake says, "Aria, I love you," he repeats.

"You too," Aria mumbles back, though she isn't sure how true that is, isn't sure of how she feels about Jake at all. "I should go, talk to you later," she says, hanging up before he can respond.

The storm rushes up the next day with bursts of thunder, streaks of lightening, gusts of wind, rain that seems never ending. The "city that never sleeps" takes a nap; the subway shuts down, storefronts close, the mayor warns people to stop evacuating, settle in at home. Aria watches from her window as her neighborhood floods, three feet of rain turning the entire street into an urban river. The water picks up whole cars, sending SUVs careening into streetlights, crashing through newsstands.

Aria is surprised how long her power lasts, until 8pm at least, until the lights start flickering, bow out completely. Aria stumbles in the dark for her flashlight, sitting by the window, her face illuminated by the glow of her laptop screen until it fades to black. Hours later she falls asleep in bed, a book splayed open on her chest, her tiny red reading light discarded on the floor next to her.

The next morning, Halloween, Aria awakes to find the power is still out, the rain still falling from the sky, her street still doing its best imitation of the Mississippi. She turns on her radio to find that Halloween across the city has been all but cancelled, not that she expected any less. The subway is flooded; the mayor is warning of gas shortages, telling people to stay indoors, conserve their food and water.

That night the rain stops and the floodwaters start to recede, pumped out by the sewer system, but the radio warns the electricity may not return for days, says more than a million people across the tri-state area are affected by the outage. They say Queens was hit hardest, downtown Manhattan too, everything south of 23th street; Aria lives well below 23rd street and doesn't need a reporter to tell her what she can see so plainly from her window.

Aria spends the next few days reading book after book, scribbling down ideas for short stories, going to bed early. She can hear people scurrying up and down the stairwell outside her apartment and Aria is glad for her non-traditional job, glad that she doesn't have to brave the morning commute without a working elevator or subway system.

The sun finally emerges that Friday, bright and full in the sky. The power is still out, but the sunlight lifts Aria's spirits, beckons her outside with her camera, despite the lingering wetness. She spends an hour sitting in the park a few blocks from her apartment, head tilted upwards, reveling in the feeling of the warm sun caressing the side of her face. She snaps photos of the fallen trees, the broken glass glinting on the sidewalk, a trash can, bent, contorted into a mess of metal, a post modern sculpture crafted by mother nature herself.

Hours later she trudges up the stairs of her apartment building, the bottoms of her shoes squeaking, still slick with water from the street outside. Aria emerges onto her floor and fumbles in the depths of her purse for her keys. She unlocks the door, throwing her bag down on a chair. She pulls her clothes off, leaves them in a tangle by the couch. She climbs into the shower, singing along to an old Patty Griffin song in her head. Afterwards, she slips on her robe, the white fluffy one she got at a spa Spencer took her to over spring break her senior year of college.

Aria is just about to sit down at her computer, get in some writing time, when she hears a soft knock at the door, so soft she thinks at first it might be her imagination.


	7. Chapter 7

7. [Ezra]

The door to her apartment is the only one not decorated for Halloween; fake cobwebs hang from the door to her left, but hers is like a blank canvas, bare except for the tiny plaque proclaiming #14.

A tall blonde let him into the building; brushed past him on her way out with a nod and a wide, flirtatious smile. And now, as he stands there in front of Aria's door, gripping the strap of his messenger bag with both hands, he's keenly aware that he's shaking slightly, that his heart might very well beat right out of his chest. He isn't even sure why he's nervous, but this all feels strangely like a job interview, a bizarre audition for the life he could have had.

He takes a deep breath, raises his fist and knocks twice, the sound echoing down the empty hallway. She opens the door and stares at him, her eyes wide as she stands there, her hair dripping wet, dressed in a fluffy white robe that falls to the middle of her thighs. Ezra cannot help but glance at her legs, his eyes travelling upwards to focus on the beads of water that cascade down the graceful column of her neck before disappearing beneath the fabric. She clears her throat and pulls the robe tighter around her body. "Ezra? What are you doing here?" She asks him, her eyes narrowing.

"I…" he starts, but the words seem to escape him. "I don't know. I guess…" He stops, shakes his head. "Today was your deadline for the new pages for your book but the subway isn't running and I called you but you never answered, probably because the power is out and, I knew you lived downtown, had your address from the publishing houses' files and I guess…I was just worried about you." He says, barely stopping to breathe. He feels suddenly sheepish, embarrassed to have been worried; but after all these years, his need to protect her is still there, as though it never quite left him at all.

Her gaze softens slightly. "Um, come in, I guess," she says, as she gestures to the couch behind her. "It's messy, I wasn't expecting anyone. I'll get changed," she tells him, her voice all business, firm and slightly cold.

Ezra sits down on her couch as Aria rushes off to the bedroom and looks around at her apartment. The living room is small but cozy, the couch, strewn with pillows in all different shapes and colors. There's a bunch of mismatched antique chairs surrounding a wooden table, off to the side of what looks like a small kitchen. There's some art on the walls, a painting he recognizes, maybe Goya, he thinks, and several he doesn't, a patterned rug on the floor, a large black desk facing the window; it's cluttered with papers, her laptop, a discarded cup of coffee, a magazine, some books.

On the wall there's a framed photo of Aria with a guy, a muscled, body builder type; in it, Aria sits sideways on his lap, kissing his cheek as he smiles wide, his mouth full of ridiculously straight, white, perfect teeth. Ezra thinks of his first picture with Aria, brown paper bags pulled over their heads, laughing at the camera like total goobers.

Aria returns a few minutes later, dressed in jeans and a royal blue sweater that brings out the green in her eyes, her hair tossed in a messy bun atop her head. Even at her most casual she looks more beautiful than any woman Ezra has seen before; for just a second he has to remind himself to breathe.

She sits down across from him, in a big green armchair with a woven blanket tossed over it. "Do you have any pages I can look over?" Ezra asks, wiping his sweaty palms against the sides of his pants.

"My laptop is dead," she replies. "Everything I've written is on there," she says. "No power, no pages," she says, shrugging her shoulders.

He nods, and they sit in uncomfortable silence for a few minutes before Ezra speaks again. He tells her he brought sandwiches, asks her if she's eaten. She tells him no, and he pulls the bag from the deli out of his messenger bag, offers her the one labeled Aria. It's mozzarella cheese and tomatoes with pesto sauce on whole wheat, her old favorite. He still remembers it, years later, as if he could forget a single thing about his first great love, perhaps his only great love, he thinks.

They sit there, quietly chewing and Ezra is stunned by how strange the situation is. He can remember countless meals in 3B, bagels and buttermilk pancakes in the morning by the table, ice cream in bed. Back then, if you had asked him how it would feel, ten years out, to be here with Aria, the last thing he would have said was awkward; and yet here they are, sitting in awkward silence eating sandwiches at a tiny table in Aria's apartment.

Between bites, Ezra tries to start a conversation; one he knows is long over due. But before he can get the words out, she tries to stop him, holding her hand up, shaking her head. "No," she says. "It's fine, you don't need to do this."

"Please, just let me say what I need to say. Please, Aria." He can feel the words on the tip of his tongue; he needs this, he needs to tell her the things he's thought over and over, laid in bed contemplating on long, lonely nights.

"I loved you," he says, his eyes locked on Aria's. "I loved you probably from the first minute I saw you and I left because I thought it was the right thing to do, because I loved you. I left so you could have a life, Aria, a life without all of the rumors and secrets and gossip, a simpler life. You deserved more, more than dates in an apartment, more than I could have given you. I left because of Malcolm too, but he isn't the only reason I left and you have to know that." He swallows back a lump in his throat, but the floodgates are open now that he's started speaking, and he can't seem to keep the words at bay.

"I know that you probably don't love me now, might not ever love me again and I'm not asking you to, but I can't accept you hating me. I just want you to be happy, but for better or worse, we have to find some way to work together. So please, tell me what I can do, anything to make things right between us, to be friends, at least."

Ezra watches Aria intently; she's staring vacantly at the half eaten sandwich in her lap, chewing on her bottom lip. When she finally looks up, she looks so miserable, so pained that it breaks Ezra's heart; he wants so badly to wrap his arms around her, to be the one to comfort her in times like this.

"I don't hate you," she says, her voice low and sad. "I don't know how I feel, really. I loved you too. I know I was only 16, but I loved you so much and you left, without so much as a word. And then one day out of the blue you show up and we have to work together? It would be confusing for anyone," she finishes, the words fading into a deep sigh.

Ezra nods. "I should leave, maybe this wasn't a good idea," he says, but doesn't move. He wants her to stop him so badly, but all she replies is, maybe. He's about to get up but before he can she rests her hand on his arm, ever so softly.

"We can still work together," she tells him. "I always valued your opinion; you were always a great editor back then, even if you were kind of biased," she says, the corners of her lips cracking into a smile.

Ezra watches as she walks to her desk and pulls out a small notebook; its cover is worn out, corners bent from overuse, with an ink stain in the middle of it shaped vaguely like a tennis racquet. "I know I'm barely done with this book," she says. "But I wrote down some new ideas, nothing concrete, but just…" she trails off, handing him the notebook.

Ezra nods, holding the old notebook in his hands tenderly as he reads each idea. He can't help but notice there seems to be a theme in all of them, a prevailing sense of longing, a yearning for something better, something else.

Ezra leaves her apartment a short while later, walks down the street towards the train, wondering what to think about this new Aria, this girl he feels he barely knows yet has so much history with.

AN: I wasn't too happy with this chapter, I couldn't get it to read the way I wanted to even after a ton of editing, but I figured if I didn't post it, I never would, lol! I'm also toying with the idea of bumping the rating of this up to Mature for possible content in later chapters, and I'm wondering if you would all keep reading if I were to do that? Please feel free to let me know in a review :)


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